The Tunisian government is calling for sanctions for publishing content “contrary to social values” on Instagram and TikTok

2024-10-28 02:56:00

MADRID 28 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Tunisian government asked this Sunday, through the Ministry of Justice, to adopt sanctions for the publication of content “contrary to social values” on the social network Instagram (owned by the American conglomerate Meta) and on TikTok (owned by the Chinese company ByteDance ).

The ministerial portfolio thus authorized the Prosecutor’s Office to adopt legal measures “to address a series of practices on social networks that include content that violates public values ​​and morals, and to initiate criminal investigations against anyone who deliberately produces, displays or publishes information or transmits images or videos that contain content that violates moral values.”

This initiative comes after the Ministry found that “some people” deliberately use social networks, especially TikTok and Instagram, to use expressions or appear in situations that violate social values, “which could negatively influence the behavior of young people who interact with the platforms mentioned above”.

The opposition, largely gathered around the National Salvation Front (FSN), has been denouncing the authoritarian drift of President Kais Saied for more than two years and calling for his resignation, especially in the face of the wave of arrests of opponents, activists and journalists, as well as the low participation rates in the constitutional referendum and elections held since then in Tunisia.

Saied assumed additional powers in 2021 when he shut down the elected parliament, dominated by the Islamist Ennahda group, and continued to rule by decree before assuming authority over the judiciary, a move for which he assumed all state powers and considered by his critics as a self-coup. Furthermore, he renewed his mandate after radical elections characterized by low participation and which were preceded by an intense arrest campaign.